Review: Sleepunder Bristol slumber party

Looking for kids’ birthday party inspiration? Or a treat for a special occasion at home? How does a sleepover party in festival-style tents sound to you? I know how it sounds to my children – freaking amazing! My Bristol brood and one of their friends had the chance to experience these magical slumber party tents – read on to find out how we got on…

*AD | I was gifted a sleepover party by Sleepunder Bristol in exchange for a review. As always, opinions and sleep deprivation are my own.

Slumber party build-up

I am fully aware of the levels of excitement that a kid must be going through watching someone put up a tent adorned with twinkling fairy lights and flowers in their bedroom for a sleepover party, because I witnessed the sheer pinging delight firsthand. I just wish I could step back in time to being three or five years old and have an ounce of my daughters’ utter joy when Sleepunder Bristol’s Heidi and her partner came to set up their festival tent sleepover party in my house a couple of weeks ago. The set-up took a breezy 20 minutes or so (even with a super-excited three year old trying to get in on the action).

Heidi and her Sleepunder Bristol & North Somerset business have all kinds of tent colours for boys and girls’ sleepover parties, but as my girls are big on pink, they were pleased as punch with the gingham fabric design. However, you can customise the theme to your child’s preferences with bunting, camouflage fabric, bright colours and gift bags – contact them for more details.

Indoor festival-style camping

We have a pretty standard size Victorian terraced house in Bristol, and we were able to fit three tents into one of the bedrooms comfortably (after doing a small bit of furniture re-arrangement).

Each tent came with its own blowup bed and bedding, soft furry blanket and heart pillow, with a couple of pink fluffy scatter cushions thrown in for decor purposes. We also stuffed our kids’ duvets in the tent just before bedtime for extra comfort on their request. Personalised slate hearts were dangled above each bed and the girls went bananas for the furry unicorn sleep masks which lay waiting for bedtime. At the foot of each tent was a breakfast tray loaded up with a (battery-powered) tealight lantern and dream bag of midnight feast-style goodies – think hot choccie, marshmallow, sweeties and a special cinema popcorn box for the bundles of popcorn included in the package.

As always, fairy lights make everything instantly magical and the tents were no exception, especially once it grew darker. The pièce de résistance though – in my opinion – and the girls thought it was pretty darn awesome too, was the ‘campfire’! A pretend one of course, but such a magical little touch.

The sleep sitch

So, how much sleep did two five year olds and a three year old actually do during the sleepover party? Well I might sound like an ogre (or just a parent that has learnt the hard way, but I swiped the goody bags of dreams away for them to munch on the next day (apart from the popcorn – they had that in front of a bedtime movie to help wind them down). There was no way I was sending them to bed sugared up to the max! I’d heard tales of kiddos not going to bed until 3am (although if this had happened to me, I would have just moved them all!) and actually, they weren’t nearly as cheeky as I thought they were going to be.

The three girls were all asleep by 8pm and were hovering outside our door around 5.45am the next morning, pretty impressive I thought, especially given it was their friend’s first time sleeping over over at a friend’s house. I must admit though, the youngest found it a little TOO exciting and reappeared downstairs several times, before eventually falling asleep watching TV on the sofa with us, before we moved her back to bed.

Heidi’s Sleepunder Bristol then turned up at 11am the next day to clear it all away.

Final thoughts on Sleepunder Bristol sleepover parties

I’d highly recommend Sleepunder Bristol for a special childrens’ party. Heidi was super friendly, great with the kids and the set-up/take down was quick and efficient and entirely done by Heidi and her partner. It’s such a fun thing for kids to do and if you keep numbers small, it’s a similar price (and great alternative!) to the cost of organising a birthday party elsewhere in Bristol.

Price: £160 for 4 children, £20 for each additional child.

Check the Sleepunder Bristol website for more information, prices and special offers.